During our weekly Sunday visit, M wanted to assist me in making some decorations for a Christmas tree I had put up in our dining room. The Teacher in me thought quickly on her feet, grabbed some construction paper, stickers and ribbons. Soon we had several ornaments with which to adorn the tree.
M was too excited to wait until our entire task was completed, so at first, whenever she finished adding the final touch of ribbon to her work, she would hurry off to the dining room to hang it on the tree. I eventually convinced her to wait until we had them all finished, reassuring her she would be able to hang each and every one.
I had a feeling about how it would all turn out....
Yes, all the decorations are in one area, all within a four year old's reach.
It's perfect. I wouldn't change a thing.
It reminds me of a Christmas tree, thirty years ago, in my mother's house.
My father had passed away in early December that year, when our oldest was just one month shy of her third birthday and daughter #2 was but seven weeks old.
God bless my mother, despite her overwhelming despair at having just "lost my best friend", she insisted that Christmas needed to go on, especially for the little ones. And that included decorating a tree.
Now my mother always prided herself on being the "supervisor" of the tree decorating each year - never hesitating to point out if there were too many ornaments in one spot, not enough lights over there, etc. But that Christmas, she was totally "Grandma". When she came into the living room and saw that her oldest granddaughter had placed at least a dozen ornaments on one branch, she clasped her hands and exclaimed that it was the most beautiful tree we had ever had. I thought surely she might rearrange the ornaments after we left, but she never touched them. Every time we came into the house that Christmas season she would remark on what a wonderful job my little one had done in helping with the tree. I'll never forget that.
It also reminds me of that famous line from A Charlie Brown Christmas when Linus says, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
No comments:
Post a Comment